Are you a good employer? Do you provide good work?

The Taylor Review, called Good work, draws on the CIPD’s research and submission, which highlighted the role of employers in improving outcomes for workers through good workplace practice. Work should provide everyone with the opportunity to fulfil their own needs and potential in ways that suit our situations throughout our lives. Having a voice is essential not just at the point of entering employment, but as it progresses, too.

The review was carried out on the assumption that work should be fair and decent providing scope for development and fulfilment. It argued that good work is part of ensuring those on lower incomes have routes to progress in work, have the opportunity to boost their earning power, and are treated with respect and decency. The quality of people’s work helps people to stay healthy and happy, and better designed work that gets the best out of people, enhancing productivity.

The conclusions were presented as seven steps towards fair and decent work with realistic scope for development and fulfilment:

1. The strategy for work should be explicitly directed toward the goal of good work for all, covering all forms of employment and making taxation and entitlements more consistent for workers and self-employed people.
2. Platform based working – a feature of the gig economy - offers opportunities for genuine two-way flexibility and there must be fairness for those who work through them and be distinguishably from those who are genuinely self-employed.
3. The law should help firms make the right choices and individuals to know and exercise their rights. The term ‘Dependent contractors’ was used, pointing to their need for protection and for incentives to ensure they are fairly treated.
4. The best way to achieve better work is not regulation but responsible corporate governance, good management and strong employment relations, enabling all workers to be engaged and heard.
5. Everyone should feel they can realistically strengthen their future work prospects and enhance the capabilities through both formal and informal learning
6. A more proactive approach to workplace health is required, recognising that the shape and content of work and individual health and well-being, are strongly related.
7. The Living Wage helps to raise the financial base line and needs to be accompanied by strategies to ensure that people are not stuck at the minimum but can progress in their work.

The Taylor Review feeds into further research CIPD is engaged in on defining, measuring and improving the quality of jobs, to taking account of both extrinsic aspects of work that can be compared, and intrinsic or subjective dimensions.